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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Steve, don't get too caught up on the permissions thing just yet, have a look at the other suggestions I mentioned (new user, clicking around, troubleshooting more...) and let us know whats going on. NOTE: the create a new user solution would be the easiest and best 'first test'.

I only suggest those chowning commands to make sure everything is normal, if you simply do a

Code:

ls -al ~/

and you find all files 'user' and 'group' are correct then permissions should be ok and there is no need to run the chown commands.

Knudfl is correct, post #6 in his link above says it all, the .gvfs file is temporarily used by gnome, if you really wanted those chmod commands to work, you would need to either exclude that one file, or easier yet, kill X, then run those commands (if X is not running, .gvfs would not be there I believe). But again, if permissions are user:user on your files, just skip those commands for now and look at the other suggestions.

When I click on a folder under the Places menu or start File Manager, the File Manager window appears. When I then click on any file or folder to open it, File Manager just freezes.

I then have to force quit and receive the error message "File Manager not responding".

When I force quit my desktop items are missing!

I thought that I would report back because I have made some progress (or at least have more useful information).

The problem may possibly be a file that is in my user folder (i.e. in /home/me)

What I did to arrive at the above conclusion:

I installed Midnight Commander, a Norton Commander look-alike, so that I could easily move files around from the command line:

Code:

sudo apt-get install mc

I then pressed CTrl+Alt+F1 to get out of the gnome desktop. I logged in and, to start Midnight Commander, typed

Code:

mc

I then created a folder called "oldgnome" and moved the following files and folders from /home/me to /home/me/oldgnome:
.ICEauthority
.Xauthority
.dmrc
.gtk-bookmarks
/.gconf
/.gconfd
/.gnome2
/.gnome2-private
/.gnupg
/.metagui
/.nautilus
/.pulse
plus a lot of PDF, SVG and TIF files that I had saved in my /home/me folder.

I pressed Alt+F7 to get back to the desktop and rebooted the computer.

Following reboot, when I clicked on 'Places', 'Home Folder' the problem seemed to have disappeared. I could access all folders without File Manager freezing.

However, when I clicked on the 'oldgnome' folder to open it, the folder opened to show the files within and the window froze so I had to force quit. (Don't forget, the files in oldgnome are the files that were originally in the /home/me folder which comes up as the default window when you start File Manager. That's why I think that my problem lies with one of these files.)

So as long as I don't click on the oldgnome folder, I am operational again.

I now need to experiment to find out what file(s) were causing the problem.

Very interesting, and good troubleshooting steve, thats the right way to narrow it down. Now just try moving individual folders back to your /home/me and find which file/folder might be causing the problem. I would start with the config folders first, because if those are not the problem, you will at least get your old gnome look and feel back (so you don't have to redo your background/skin/look etc...). Let us know what you find.

Very interesting, and good troubleshooting steve, thats the right way to narrow it down. Now just try moving individual folders back to your /home/me and find which file/folder might be causing the problem. I would start with the config folders first, because if those are not the problem, you will at least get your old gnome look and feel back (so you don't have to redo your background/skin/look etc...). Let us know what you find.

I systematically put all the folders back...
...and none had any adverse effect on File Manager!